


Death, Birth and Moving On

by SingSongSilence



Category: rise of the guardians
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, let me show you my headcanon, vague timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 01:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingSongSilence/pseuds/SingSongSilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn’t know when it changes from <i>he died because of me</i> to <i>I’m alive because of him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Death, Birth and Moving On

The crack of the ice giving way completely is the loudest thing she’s ever heard.

 

And Jack is gone.

 

She doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe.

 

Jack doesn’t resurface.

 

She thinks she might be crying.

 

She wants to go to the edge of the hole and _find him_. She knows she can’t do that, but she can’t remember why.

 

She sinks down onto her knees. She _knows_ she’s crying now; the tears are starting to freeze on her cheeks.

 

She can’t find the strength to get to her feet and go home. She stays kneeling on the ice, even when her tears run out.

 

* * *

 

The sound of talking in the kitchen wakes her. If she concentrates she can make out what is being said (her father asks “How long until the thaw?”) but she’s warm and her bed is so comfortable.

 

 Just a few more minutes and she’ll get up and drag her lazybones brother out of bed to get ready for the day.

  

* * *

 

She stumbles out of bed, eyes still blurred with sleep. Shuffles across their small room to Jack’s bed—

 

It’s empty.

 

That can’t be right. Jack is never awake before she is. Jack would sleep all day if he was allowed. Jack—

 

_We’re gonna have a little fun instead._

She claps her hands over her mouth in horror. The memory can’t be real, she must be remembering a dream, a nightmare, because it can’t be real, Jack can’t really be—

 

She has to find him.

 

She bursts into the kitchen, still in her nightgown, to see that her aunt and uncle are there with her parents and everything seems far, far too solemn.

 

Jack isn’t there.

 

Her mother has been crying.

 

It wasn’t a dream, it was real, it’s true, Jack is—

 

But she needs to _hear it_ because if no one says it, if no one confirms the worst then there is still a chance she’s wrong. 

 

“Where’s Jack…?” she asks and even in the dead silence of the kitchen her voice is barely audible, even to her own ears.

 

Her mother starts to cry again and she can’t breathe, the world is falling away, apart, _ending_ around her.

 

Her uncle embraces her awkwardly and says in his gruff voice “I’m sorry, lass.”

  

* * *

 

His funeral will be in the spring, after the thaw, once they have had a chance to retrieve his body from the lake.

 

She sits on her mother’s lap as the adults discuss it. She stays there even after her aunt and uncle leave. Sometimes she cries, but mostly she just sits and tries to process it all.

 

Jack is dead.

 

Jack fell through the ice and drowned.

 

Jack fell because he saved her.

 

Jack will never pretend to be angry when she wakes him up again.

 

Jack will never again pelt her with snowballs when she least expects it.

 

Jack can’t make the little children laugh during frightening storms anymore.

 

Can’t climb trees, can’t play tag, can’t make any more bad jokes.

 

Can’t smile anymore.

 

She’s crying again.

 

* * *

 

She has nightmares for weeks.

 

_Jack trapped under the ice, drowning and freezing, but still alive, unable to die while she watches from above the ice until she turns away and leaves him there._

She wakes up crying.

 

_She walks through the woods on a warm, sunny day that suddenly turns dark and cold. The sound of breaking ice echoes around her and suddenly Jack is there in front of her, soaking wet and half frozen, with dead, empty eyes._

_“You killed me.” The ghoul whispers in her brother’s voice._

 

She wakes up screaming.

 

_Jack is walking away from her and no matter how loud she screams, he doesn’t turn around. No matter how fast she runs, he keeps getting further and further away until he is only a speck in the distance and then he is gone, the ice breaks and she is drowning with no one there to save her._

She wakes up with dried tears on her cheeks and a great hollowness inside her.

 

* * *

 

She’s always tired now. She has no energy, or desire to do anything. Sometimes the other children try to get her to play in the snow with them.

 

She always declines.

  

* * *

 

The first thing to truly catch her attention is overhearing her uncle tell her father that the lake has thawed.

 

They’ll retrieve the body soon.

 

She wants to go with them. She can’t bear the thought of staying behind while the men retrieve him.

 

Her father is horrified by the idea.

 

“You don’t need to see this.” He tells her.

 

She doesn’t want to _see_ , she just needs to _be there_. She’ll stay behind a tree, she promises, so she doesn’t see whatever they find.

 

Her father is still unsure.

 

She was there when he went in. She needs to be there when he comes out.

 

* * *

 

Two days later she goes with her father to the lake.

 

As she promised, she stands with her back to one of the pines, and doesn’t watch as the men drag the lake.

 

The lake is much deeper than they thought.

 

They don’t find the body.

 

* * *

 

There is no casket at the funeral, and the grave marker in the cemetery has nothing underneath it. Her brother’s grave is empty.

 

She stays in the cemetery long after everyone has left. Her parents tried to convince her to come with them to her uncle’s house, but she wasn’t ready to leave.

 

She thinks maybe she hates the lake.

 

It took her brother from her, and doesn’t even have the decency to give his body back so her family can say goodbye properly.

 

She’s so silly for hating the lake. It’s just a _lake_.

 

But it still _killed_ her brother, let him save her life in exchange for his own—

 

It hits her suddenly in a way it never has before.

 

_He saved me._

* * *

Later that night, her parents come into the room that is only hers because Jack is gone, to find her sitting on his bed, holding his skates.

 

No one had asked her for the details of what happened on the lake. She’s grateful for that; the way no one pushed her, even though she could see they longed for answers. They didn’t push when she wasn’t ready and she can never thank them enough for that.

 

She wants them to know that Jack saved her, that he’s a hero.

 

She’s ready now.

 

“He saved me.” She tells her parents, tells them the whole story; the things he’d said, how he wasn’t afraid for himself.

 

The way he smiled at her, right before the ice broke.

 

Her parents sit with her on his bed while they cry. Even her father is crying, and he never cries, not even when pneumonia took her grandmother two winters ago.

 

She wonders for a moment if they will blame her, tell her it’s her fault.

 

Instead they hold her and cry with her and her mother keeps whispering ‘my brave boy’.

 

* * *

 

They place his skates against his grave at dawn the next day.

 

* * *

 

It was his choice.

 

She tells herself that in the night when she wakes up crying.

 

She tells herself that when she is overcome by grief during lessons at the school.

 

He died because of her, but it _was_ his choice.

 

She can’t decide if that makes it worse or better.

 

* * *

 

It takes a long time, but slowly the world becomes interesting again. She plays with the other children again (even though she’s not as much fun as Jack). She helps her cousin fix up her house in preparation for her new baby (even though she can’t reach as high as Jack, but she’ll get there).

 

Some days the weight of her grief will still overwhelm her. Some days, the knowledge that he saved her ( _He died because of me._ ) is more than she can bear.

 

On the worst days, she thinks he must resent her for it. That if he could do it over, knowing the consequences, what it would cost him, he would have let her fall instead.

 

On the better days, she is horrified with herself for even thinking that way. She knows her brother. He could never stand to see anyone unhappy or in pain. He would never, could never walk away, no matter what.

 

He’s better than that.

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t know when it changes from _he died because of me_ to _I’m alive because of him_.

 

But one day, there it is and she feels _light_ in a way that she hasn’t since they followed the path to the lake together for the last time.

 

For the first time, Jack’s sacrifice is a gift rather than a burden.

 

For the first time in what feels like forever, she can say “I’m alright” and be telling the truth.

 

* * *

 

Her cousin has the baby, a little boy that the whole family loves instantly.

 

“We were wondering,” the new mother asks slowly. “Would it be alright if we named him after Jack?”

 

She waits for her parents to answer, to tell them that ‘of course it’s alright’ but strangely, no answer comes. She looks at her parents, about to ask why they aren’t answering, only to find that both her mother and father are looking at _her_. Her mother gives her a small nod and gestures to where her cousins and the new baby are waiting. They want her to decide.

 

It’s her choice.

 

“Yes.” She tries to say, but it comes out garbled, trapped by the sudden flood of an emotion that she can’t name which has tightened her throat and brought tears to her eyes.

 

“Yes.” She gasps as the tears overflow. “Of course you can. He- He would be honoured.”

 

* * *

 

When baby Jackson is older, she will tell him stories of his namesake. She’ll tell him about the snowballs and fun times, the pranks and bad jokes. About skating and sledding and stories at night.

 

About the boy who, more than anything, wanted people to smile.

 

When he’s old enough, she’ll take him to their lake. She’ll test the ice carefully, and then she’ll teach him to skate.

**Author's Note:**

> I made both my betas cry with this, so if I got you too, I'm sorry. 
> 
> I didn't give any of Jack's family names because I feel really weird about it for some reason. Also, I am very indecisive.
> 
> Please tell me if there's a mistake anywhere. Especially with formatting. I had epic issues with formatting.


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